Find a guide. The benefits of a guide profession. It happens like this: the attraction is closed to visitors and the point

Irina Davydova

Reading time: 9 minutes

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The profession, known today as a "guide-guide", until the end of the sixties, we can say, practically did not exist. Usually volunteers undertook this work - and, most often, absolutely free of charge. Caring for the excursions was assigned to the staff of museums and universities. As for full-time guides - there were few.

The development of an excursion destination in tourism in the USSR started only after 1969. And today this profession is considered fashionable, profitable and prestigious.

Features of the guide-guide - where and how does the guide work?

So, after all, a guide or a guide? How right? And is there any difference?

There is definitely a difference.

The first, in addition to direct duties, accompanies guests on tours, as well as on hikes or even cruises, ensures their safety and solves their everyday problems. And the second one only guides tours (usually the same ones) along a specific route or to an object chosen by tourists (program), telling guests about the history of the object or area.

Where do tour guides work?

Most often, a tour company (as well as museums, etc.) becomes the guide’s place of work. But, upon reaching a certain level of experience and skill, often the guides go "free swimming", preferring to work for themselves.

What does the guide do?

Among the duties of a guide, the following can be noted:

• Escort of tourists and their informing about the history of certain sights.
• Search and thorough study of history.
• Development of unique (and not very - who will succeed) excursion programs.
• Coordination of tourists during an emergency.
• Conducting safety briefings.
• First aid if necessary.
• Performing the functions of a translator.
• Filling out excursion documents.
• Checking participants' documents, organizing their departure and controlling them until the end of the tour.

Necessary skills, personal and business qualities for working as a guide-guide

Among the main requirements that are put forward to the applicant for this profession:

1. Higher humanitarian education.
2. Knowledge of one (minimum English), and preferably 2-3 foreign languages.
3. Grammatically correct speech.
4. Inner charm and artistry.
5. Sociability, ability to get along with people and quickly find contact.
6. The ability to correctly, clearly and interestingly tell people about certain facts of history.
7. In most cases (in reputable companies) - the presence of accreditation.
8. Knowledge of museum / sightseeing and local history, the Russian language and literature, history and ethnography, cultural studies.
9. Knowledge of a specific excursion destination, in accordance with the chosen one (history, weapons, local history, etc.).

Personal qualities and talents, without which it is impossible to successfully master the profession:

• Acting abilities.
• Good memory.
• Love of history, local history.
• Talent to quickly find the right words and instantly find a solution in the most delicate situations.
• The ability to concentrate people's attention, captivate them with interesting information and completely capture attention.
• The desire to improve.
• Love for your work.
• Speech endurance.
• Tolerance, the ability to communicate with a variety of tourists and groups of tourists, including those that in ordinary life you go around a kilometer.
• High linguistic literacy and culturological erudition.
• Talent of psychologist and teacher.
• Ability to do without a translator (high level of foreign spoken language).
• High performance and physical endurance.
• A sense of humor (you can’t do without it in work).

Who needs this job?

Most of this profession is suitable for young, hardy and attractive boys and girls with a high level of intelligence and perfect knowledge of English, with leadership qualities, collected and responsible, extremely energetic and active in life, in love with the land where they take excursions.

Profession guide-guide - pros and cons of work

Of the advantages of the profession, which are many, we can especially highlight ...

1. Lack of routine in their work. If the guide's excursions remain the same from year to year, the guide is free to independently plan the routes and the excursions themselves, as well as make changes.
2. Constant communication and meeting new people.
3. Constant language practice when communicating with foreign guests.
4. Decent salary.
5. A boring job that you can really go to with pleasure.
6. An opportunity to travel and work in the fresh air.
7. Prospects for the development of their business in tourism.
8. Free schedule (unless, of course, you are not a full-time employee at the museum, for example).
9. The stability of earnings when working in cities attractive to tourists.

Disadvantages of the profession:

• Constant work on the feet.
• The need to work in any weather.
• Meals "on the fly" (often instead of lunch you have to solve various organizational issues or even look for your confused guests).
•   . The guide is responsible for his tourists.
• The need to smile even for those to whom you would never smile in ordinary life.
• Decrease in profit in the autumn and winter seasons (not everywhere).
• Extremely serious competition.

Teaching a profession guide - courses, educational institutions, self-study

Of course, you can try to become a guide on your own with a regular secondary education, completing any courses - or just listening to a few lectures at the local museum. But this is possible only in small towns or villages where the flow of tourists is low, and no one thinks about the quality of the guide's work.

If you are serious about this profession and are going to earn good and stable income on it, then you should approach the matter with all responsibility.

1. University   Higher humanitarian education is indispensable (note - history, philology, cultural studies, etc.). There are enough specialized faculties in modern universities. Naturally, foreign languages \u200b\u200bshould be studied in parallel. You must be fluent in English at the highest cultural level. German, French and Chinese will also not be superfluous.
2. Courses.  Lectures and trainings are held at universities and museums. After completing the courses, participants receive relevant documents. Courses are suitable for those who already have a diploma.
3. Training   (you can’t do without it if you want to move forward, and not stand still until the very old age).
4. Proficiency Test and obtaining a license.

Where to go to study?

• University of Management and Economics in St. Petersburg.
• International Academy of Tourism in Moscow.
• Russian State Humanitarian University.
• Institute of International Tourism in Irkutsk.
• University of Tourism and Resort in Sochi.
• Training Center for Guides and Guides.
• Association of guide-translators and guides.

Features of the career and salary of the guide - how much does the guide guide receive

In St. Petersburg alone, more than 7 million guests visited 2016. Therefore, the question of the relevance of the profession in large cities is not even worth it: tour guides are needed wherever there are tourists.

Average earnings will depend on the region and place of work. The average salary in the country is about 35,000 p.  In Moscow and St. Petersburg in the season you can earn up to 80,000 p and more.

The most profitable regions for guides are:

• Moscow region and Moscow.
• Petersburg and the Leningrad region.
• Krasnodar region.

As for the level of salary, it remains the highest today in Moscow, after which comes the Kemerovo region, then the Republic of Tatarstan and St. Petersburg.

It is worth noting that when working for a travel agency, the guide's salary is, on average, about 2,000 rubles a day per season, plus tips. When working for himself, such an employee naturally receives all the profit for himself.

Is career growth possible?

Of course, yes - as in any profession.

And the highest point of a career is not just self-employment, but opening your own excursion bureau or other business in this market area.

  a guide from scratch?

The path to success for the future guide is as follows:

1. Obtaining appropriate education and learning a foreign language (s).
2. Courses (average cost of quality training programs - about 50,000 p.) - 2-4 months.
3. Internship and exam at the museum.
4. Obtaining accreditation, without which you will not be able to get a really good job and conduct excursions (fine - up to 25,000 for individuals).
5. The device in a travel company, in a museum, hotel and so on.

Accreditation - how to get it, and what is it?

Accreditation is a special permission of the state type, which gives the right to conduct excursions for foreign guests.

These permits were introduced to improve the quality of service for tourists arriving to us.

In total, 3 levels of accreditation are known:

• 3rd category - trainee (permit term - 1 year). Requirements: a diploma from a university, a certificate of completed courses (or faculty) for a guide or a guide, a document on listening to lectures on conducting excursions in the museum and (optionally, but it will be a plus) experience in conducting excursions in the workbook.
• 2nd category - for professionals with experience of 2 years or more. The term of permission is 3 years.
• 1st category - for professionals with experience of 7 years. Accreditation is perpetual and does not require renewal.

You can get a license only after training, and what future place to choose for it - each future guide decides for himself.

Accreditations for work in Moscow and St. Petersburg (for example) are various, and there is no uniform certification of guides in the country.

For example, in St. Petersburg you can get such accreditation in the city tourist information bureau, and in the capital - in the Association of guide-translators and tour guides.

Important:

Finding a job with accreditation is easy if you have your own interesting itineraries. It is enough to come in person or send to where you would like to get a job.

If you liked our article and you have any thoughts about this, please share with us. It is very important for us to know your opinion!

But where to find a guide that can interestingly present the material? You can try in social networks, but not all specialists are there. In addition, the most popular ones rarely go there, because they often do not have time. We offer an alternative option for how to find a guide: contact us, at the Youatlas service.

All guides in one place

Regardless of where exactly you want to go (to Cambodia, USA, Ireland, South Africa), we have suitable excursions. To find a guide, you just need to look at our site. No need to search for anyone: we already have contacts of experienced guides! Moreover, all experts are verified. And you can contact them even before placing an order. For this, a special button on the site is provided.

5 reasons to find a guide

In the modern world, there are many ways to explore different interesting places on your own. Why is it worth finding a guide? What does it give? Let's figure it out!

A good guide knows a lot about the places and sights that he will show you. Very often, famous cathedrals, palaces, mansions in which wealthy people of past eras lived, show, for example, architects. They explain in an accessible way how this or that building stands out, draw attention to such nuances that an ordinary traveler would simply pass by.

Historians know how to correctly plunge into the past of a city or a specific part, describe a specific era, tell how people lived then. A walk with such a guide will remind you of a journey to another world, to one in which it is still fresh and real. In addition, with guides with a historical background, for obvious reasons, it is very interesting to visit various excavations.

Often tours are conducted by experienced art historians. A visit with them to an art gallery or to a specific exhibition will enrich you with knowledge about the most famous paintings, murals, sculptures and other works. You will see in front of you is not just a work of art, you will begin to understand the subtext.

Some tours are compiled by journalists. They love to dig out what cannot be found on the Internet, to find inconsistencies between popular theories that explain the past of a city or a specific place. Very often such people conduct whole investigations.

The second reason to find a guide is to save money. Yes, you heard right. Although the services of the guide will need to be spent, he will save you from having to hire a translator. In addition, experienced guides often know where to buy souvenirs for less, some share their discounts when going to popular shopping and entertainment centers.

Do you like photo shoots? Would you like to bring unusual pictures from your vacation? In this case, here it is, the third reason to find a guide! Many guides themselves are fond of photographing. They are constantly looking for interesting and unusual angles from which you can remove a famous attraction so that it looks original, perhaps even unrecognizable. And guides willingly share these secrets with travelers.

Unique features are what you get when you buy a specific program. Guides develop routes, book hotel rooms, tables in famous restaurants, buy tickets to museums or to shows ... In short, they do everything so that you can be where you couldn’t get in otherwise. Thanks to the guides, you don’t have to worry about queues. And, by the way, they’re simply not allowed to go to many places without guides.

Finally, the fifth reason is pleasure and the opportunity to relax. You do not need to think about where and how to find something interesting, how to get to a specific place, where to find it on a map, how to get from one point to another, and then return to your hotel. The guide will do everything for you. And is vacation not necessary in order to relax properly?

A good guide is rare luck. It is not so easy to meet him in the halo of temporary dwelling among ancient ruins or highlands with heather. You can, of course, walk yourself, but with a competent guide it is noticeably more fun and interesting. And sometimes a guide is simply necessary - there are places where you can’t get without it. Olga Rastegaeva, the founder of the travel blog "Orange Traveler" understands what guides are and where they live.

Guide Bayun

A special gift of this storyteller is the monotonous "bubbling", under which all tourists of any nationality fall asleep after the third phrase he said. It seems that he knows the ancient spells that he found among the manuscripts in the archive, studying the excursion business. The rare ability to be stable intonationally leads to the fact that everyone sweetly gets enough sleep in any uncomfortable position in the bus or car and falls into a strange numbness at the door of another Gothic church.

Information: 1-2%.

Degree of fatigue: 0%.

Where do they live:  in countries with high social responsibility, where you have to learn by heart everyone.

Guide-bore

How, you don’t know the Count of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bJoffre Shaggy? Well, the one whom he killed on August 11, 897 with his spear Lubb ibn Muhammad? You don't know him either? Well, at least you don’t know Charles II the Bald, that he dipped his fingers in the blood of Shaggy and drew a coat of arms on the shield?

A pile of dates, a description of a family tree up to the twentieth knee, with a detailed description for each family member, a detailed description of hostilities, legends of saints, told by a particularly hot sultry day in the sunshine, can turn an excursion with such a guide into real torture.

Some tourists come to life when it comes to betraying the king, but quickly lose interest due to the complete absence of any intrigue. How, you don’t know the niece of the monarch’s mistress, the one who was a nun?

Information: 150%

Degree of fatigue: 80%.

Where do they live:  in large European cities.

Local guide

"Ah, what a pyramid, overlook, what a pyramid! A very beautiful pyramid, the largest in the world!" According to the first phrases, any "tourist" who has embarked on such an excursion will try to escape by flight, but there it was. The local guide keeps his hand on the pulse and does not allow to escape.

His vocabulary, a little more than many local ones, easily allows him to take excursions and tell the story of the Ancient Of egypt. So he believes himself, his mother and his relatives, who own a travel agency. During such a tour you will not learn anything. But you will fend off numerous friendly offers to buy hookah, aromatic oils, latex pillows, spices and much more.

Information: 0%.

Degree of fatigue:  100%. The degree of rejection of local merchants by all unnecessary is maximum.

Where do they live:  mainly in the Arab countries - Egypt, Jordan, found in Vietnam, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka.

Guide them. Patrice Lumumba

Perhaps in this rating he got in vain. Since he knows how to mimic under his boyfriend and has a good understanding that something went wrong - at the level of facial expressions the faces of tourists. He perfectly mastered this art over the years of study in Russia, living in a hostel. Sometimes he jokes quite funny in the contrast of the terrain he is talking about. He knows where to get alcohol, if suddenly everything is closed. The tour usually turns into detailed answers to numerous questions: "And how was it when you studied with us? Why did you leave and do you want to return to Moscow?"

Information: 50%.

Degree of fatigue: 0%.

Where do they live:  where you are surprised to hear Russian speech - in Laos or Zanzibar.

Ink guide

Information: 20%.

Degree of fatigue: 70%.

Where do they live:  unfortunately, everywhere where the activities of guides are not strictly licensed.

Guide answering machine

The most weak-willed and driven of all those present, which is immediately taken into circulation by tourists. First, for a show (the tour) they will carefully ask if the king’s wife was beautiful, if the scoundrel-husband cheated on her, and upset, spit on museums, will go shopping to cheer up the queen. Having abandoned the plan for the tour, bashfully hiding the abstract of speech in a briefcase with the logo of the local host company, such a guide will begin to explain in detail where and what to buy cheaper. The medicine for the dog is over there, the dentures for the mother-in-law are here. If the tour drags on, he will be sad to watch his tourists loudly sing karaoke in the local language while he watches the shopping bag.

Information: 2%.

Degree of fatigue: 2%.

Where do they live:  everywhere, in places of mass recreation. Especially the beach.

Wizard guide

This guide does not know the word no. He smiles, is friendly and fantastically sociable. He seems to know everyone and everything, he can organize everything you ask for. And what, exactly unicorn eggs are sold in the markets? And love potions? And can you arrange a meeting with the witch? And get the local topazes? Straight from the hands and cheaper? Five times? And here you are, enthusiastic, get into the car, rub the lenses of the camera to the brilliance in anticipation of a unique reportage.

But you come to the authentic fish market to meet fishermen, and they already checked in a couple of hours ago, and now they are empty here. In the shop of the wizard today they did not deliver spare parts from the unicorn and did not put rat tails and dried toads. Topaz sold everything. Right here in front of you. And a representative of an ancient tribe bursts his phone under a loincloth, he is late for a briefing at a local company.

Information: 2%.

Degree of fatigue: 2%.

Degree of Disappointment: 99%.

Where do they live:  Africa, Asia.

The best guide

He is a little actor and, carried away, tells the story almost in person. He is an excellent playwright and director of his excursion - he knows how to effectively hit the group at the end of the story. He is a wonderful speaker - he knows how to keep attention. He is a true storyteller and knows the facts for which he spent more than a dozen hours in local libraries and pubs.

Its broad outlook makes it easy to switch to other topics. He is an extrovert, and he is known by a variety of personalities - from the seller of ice cream to the director of the museum. He is spontaneous, positive and easy to climb: if he sees that tourists were attracted to some topic, he will turn off the planned path and show something interesting outside the plan. He has a good sense of humor, and unlike bores, he does not forget to joke. He has good speech - a delight for the ears. He watches time perfectly, and it is impossible to bury his nose in closed doors with him. And most importantly - a good guide should love people.

Information: 200%.

Degree of fatigue: 0%.

Where do they live:  mainly in Europe, but single representatives can be found all over the world.

Where to look for guides for excursions?

The second way - groups and associations of guides on Facebook. It’s enough to just search, as you can immediately select several sites, for example, Budapest guides, original excursions in Paris, photo walks in Vienna. Quickly look around, read posts and comments.

The third way is to ask the concierge at the hotel to find a guide.

The fourth way - to find a guide on the spot, in museums, national parks.

The fifth method - aggregator platforms. The chances of meeting representatives of our seven are great, but if you try, you can find your diamond.

Finding a good and inexpensive guide abroad is not an easy task and the last bastion of travel agencies in individual sightseeing tours. Finding a ticket and a number in search engines is cheaper than taking it at an agency; visa centers are already conducting visas. If you know how to make the route of the trip, it remains only to find suitable guides  and your exclusive trip is ready.

You can search for a guide in the city you need using the Yandex or Google search engine. But the issuance will be irrelevant, a lot of garbage and outdated information. It will take a lot of time to sift the results. It will be necessary to call or wait for a response by mail, for a long time, sometimes to no avail. As a result, all the chores can be in vain. It is better to use modern guide search services, an overview of which is ahead.

If a guide is suitable for you in one of the European languages

www.contexttravel.com. The service offers excursions with scientists and experts in various fields, including archeology, art history, cuisine, urban planning, history, environmental sciences. Associate professors, as the service calls them, combine their usual work as scientists and researchers and conduct in-depth pedestrian workshops for small groups of intellectually curious travelers. If you want to get an expert look at a certain field of knowledge, this service is for you.

Cons: Russian-speaking guides this service does not offer. The territory is limited to several dozen cities.

Minus: Russian-speaking guides are not yet found here.

If you are looking for a Russian-speaking guide or “our resident” abroad

www.localguiding.com. This service also offers contact with a local guide, so you can find the right guide very inexpensively, literally for a few dollars or euros. The service is convenient and well debugged. It quickly finds the area and the selected language, immediately offering excursions, cost and prompt communication with the guide. In addition to guides and various excursions, the site offers short tours for several days, hiking, cycling and so on.

Less: Russian-speaking guides are not crowded, but you can find. In Europe, almost no problem.

www.getyourguide.com. This service does not specialize only in guides; here you can find besides excursions: tours, cooking courses, cruises, hop-on hop-off buses and much more. But there are guides too, you will need to configure. First, in the upper search bar, specify the country or city. Then scroll the window down a bit and set the language - russian in the left column. We receive the issuance of all service options in Russian. Now we go up, on the left in the column we specify what we need: transfers, excursions, tours or movie tickets.

Cons: the service concludes contracts with companies, and not with private guides, so there are many multilingual excursions and tours in the assortment. As a result, in issuing or excursions at a higher cost or excursions with headphones.

tourguides.viator.com. Part of the great viator.com service is the search for tours and entertainment, it’s easy to get lost in it. If you only need a guide, tourguides.viator.com allows you to quickly and easily find the right person in the right place. The service offers both licensed guides and non-licensed guides. Searching is very convenient and fast, first enter the direction or city, then the language and get all the profiles. Some guides offer discounts on their excursions.

Less: finding a Russian-speaking guide in Asia is difficult.

www.excursiopedia.com A Russian-language service created by our compatriots. Convenient, clear fast. Allows you to search immediately and tours and guides. It also offers other ground service options, sports, adventure, educational.

Cons: the cost of excursions and services is protected by the commission of the Internet service itself. In the case of some kind of entertainment attraction, cruise or surf camp, this commission is included in the price of the service package. But if you only need a guide, it will cost you more.

www.shiroube.com. Service while working in beta testing mode. In the center of the page we set the language and country. The search engine finds our compatriots working as guides in all parts of the world: in the Canary Islands and in Thailand and China. It also sorts guides by gender, age, interests and allows you to contact them through your interface.

Minus: the search engine is still working with a slight creak.

www.privateguide.com. Rather, a bulletin board with guide contacts. The base of contacts is decent. There are many guides and not only in Europe. Here you will find a guide in both Varanasi and Casablanca.

Minus: the service is not perfectly debugged, it does not immediately understand what is needed from it.

Going on vacation to an unfamiliar country, each of us wants to get as many positive emotions from travel as possible. Therefore, many prefer to entrust their acquaintance with the sights with a professional guide who will not only tell you about the history and culture of Aboriginal people, but also show you the most important places, help in difficult situations and give some valuable tips on how to behave and what to avoid.

Going on vacation to an unfamiliar country, each of us wants to get as many positive emotions and impressions from the trip as possible. Therefore, someone carefully inspects all available information about the selected country before the trip and plans excursion routes on their own, while someone prefers to entrust their acquaintance with the sights with a professional guide who will not only tell about the history and culture of Aboriginal people, but also show the most significant places, will help in difficult situations and give some valuable tips on how to behave and what should be avoided.

As you probably already understood, this article will focus on guide profession, whose representatives can be safely called the "guardian angels" of hapless tourists who manage to "get lost in three pines" and get into the most ridiculous situations "out of the blue."

What is a guide?

A guide is a specialist who accompanies a tourist (or a group of tourists) on excursions, on hikes, car tours, etc., and introduces him to local attractions, culture and traditions. Quite often, a guide also has a duty to organize leisure activities.

The name of the profession comes from the French guide (leader, guide), which almost completely reflects the essence of the guide. When the first guides appeared reliably unknown, however, there is an assumption that the need for them arose simultaneously with the ability to travel over long distances. It is known that the services of the crowned special ones who traveled abroad always provided lodging to the meeting party, which not only acquainted senior guests with local sights, but also provided them with any feasible help.

Over time and as a result of the development of tourism, there was a need for professional guides, as a result of which this profession appeared. Profession today guide  It includes several narrow specializations, among which the guide-translator, guide-guide and guide-naturalist are especially in demand.

The duties of a modern guide include: meeting tourists on arrival, organizing sightseeing tours, escorting during excursions or walks, getting to know the peculiarities of local culture and customs, ensuring the safety of tourists, etc. That is, for a tourist group, the guide becomes a real leader, on whom the overall impression of the trip and the place of rest depends.

What personal qualities should a guide have?

It’s not difficult to guess that since guide work  involves communication with a large number of people, a representative of this profession must not only be sociable, but also a very interesting conversationalist, able to captivate listeners with his stories and convey valuable information to them. In addition, the guide should have such personal qualities as:

• artistry;
• responsibility;
• punctuality;
• equilibrium;
• good memory;
• erudition;
• goodwill;
• tact;
• patience;
• resourcefulness;
• intelligible and competent speech.

Since the guide has to deal with a variety of people during work, knowledge of the basics of psychology and the ability to neutralize any conflict will not be out of place. If we talk about the requirements for the physical training of a guide, then the representative of this profession should be hardy and not get tired during long walks. The guide will also come in handy with an excellent sense of humor, which will help him to always be in a good mood, regardless of the difficulties and difficulties that have arisen. Well and most importantly, the guide should love not only his work, but also the area with which he acquaints tourists.

The benefits of a guide profession

Talking about benefits of a guide professionFirst of all, it is necessary to note the lack of routine in the work. In contrast to the adjacent specialization of the guide, where the specialist sometimes has to conduct the same excursion from year to year, the guide himself draws up a route in which tourists often make their changes. Also, the advantages of this profession include:

• communication and acquaintance with a large number of people;
• the opportunity to practice foreign languages \u200b\u200bwith native speakers;
• decent level of remuneration;
• the opportunity to travel a lot and discover new tourist destinations;
• work in the fresh air;
• great prospects for the development of its own tourism business.

Disadvantages of a guide profession

Disadvantages of a guide profession  no less than advantages. What is the need to work at any time of the day and in any weather. The well-known proverb "the wolf feeds the legs" fits this profession very well, as the salary directly depends on the quantity and quality of the tours: went to work - received payment, did not leave - did not receive. Do not forget that the guide:

• very often left without breakfast or lunch (while tourists have lunch, the guide often has to solve organizational issues, or look for those lagging behind a group of tourists);
• must answer with any smile tourists' questions, even if they, in his opinion, are stupid and tactless (that is, one cannot demonstrate a bad mood and irritability);
• responsible for the safety of tourists, who, incidentally, are not always distinguished by prudence and discipline;
• almost all day he says and tells something, and this is a very big load on the vocal cords.

Where can I get a guide profession?

In order to become a guide  it is not necessary to receive a special education. It is enough to complete special courses, pass an examination for professional suitability, and you can begin to work. Practice has shown that the knowledge and skills acquired in the courses are quite enough for the first time. The further career and, importantly, the guide’s salary level depends entirely on his ability to improve himself and his desire to constantly improve his skills.